Los Angeles history

Mob suspected in bookie's killing, October 22, 1958

Clifford Rue was a man who was ahead of his time and behind on the payments to his bookie.

A
former Marine who changed his name from Rubenstein for business
purposes, Rue had been working at his father's liquor store when he
persuaded some friends to join him in an unusual venture.

Rue
was one of those men who couldn't get enough sports statistics. If he
were alive today, he would probably be in a dozen fantasy leagues
and spend all his time on a computer.

But in the 1950s, access
to sports information was far more restricted. Rue badgered
sportswriters and newspaper editors for updates until he wore out their
patience. So in 1955 he persuaded some friends to come up with enough
money to begin a free sports information service.

According to
Time magazine, Rue's Sports Information Results hired 17 researchers to
answer 18,000 sports questions a day. Queries included "What's the
largest football score ever run up?" or "What is the maximum speed of
a duck?" To make a profit, the service sold ads that were played over
the phone before callers got their answers.

After an initial
success, the venture apparently went under. Rue began working at the
Seville, a nightclub at 7969 Santa Monica Blvd., and operated a credit
business called Trans-National Budget Plan. He and his wife were also
doing some remodeling at a dress shop she planned to open at 12236
Ventura Blvd.

Along the way, Rue ran up gambling debts until he owed
$4,200 ($29,803.65 USD 2007) to Morris "Goldie" Goldsworth, a bookie
who split his time between Las Vegas and Los Angeles. But while he was
losing money to Goldsworth, he had also won $700 from a wholesale
jeweler named David Solomon.

On the afternoon of Oct. 16,
1958, Solomon visited Rue, who was at work doing some remodling at his
wife's dress shop, and paid $200 on his debts.

Later that day, Goldsworth arrived at the Ventura Boulevard dress shop in what The Times described as a hardtopped convertible.

Police
found his car four days later parked at 3809 Rhodes Ave. A neighbor
complained that the convertible had been left in front of his house and
in answering the call, Officer E.C. Hayes noticed that blood had dripped
from the trunk onto the back bumper. While he was waiting for
detectives to respond, Hayes removed the backseat and saw a body.

Morris
Goldsworth, 52, had been shot and beaten in the head. His pockets were
turned inside-out. All that police found on him were a white
handkerchief and half a pack of cigarettes. Further investigation revealed dried flecks of paint on the body. Police Chief William H.
Parker immediately announced that Goldsworth's death was a mob killing
and turned the investigation over to Chief of Detectives Thad Brown.

In
tracing Goldsworth's last movements, detectives interviewed Rue, 34, who
told them that the bookie left the shop after being paid the $4,200
gambling debt.

Under further questioning, Rue admitted killing
Goldsworth. He said he offered the bookie $200, but that Goldsworth had
drawn a gun and demanded the entire amount. Rue grabbed a hammer and
hit Goldsworth, then took the bookie's gun and shot him with it. For
good measure, Rue hit him with the hammer again.

Rue said he
wrapped the body with dropcloths that some painters had left in the back of
the dress shop and hauled it out to the car. He planned to dump the
body in the desert but got lost on Rhodes, which is a dead-end
street, and abandoned the car four blocks from the shop. He walked back
to the shop, burned the dropcloths, and painted the floor red when he
couldn't clean Goldsworth's blood off the concrete.

While he
was being questioned, Rue pried a piece of metal molding from a desk
and later that day he tried to kill himself by slashing his neck with
it.

The next day, police took him back to the dress shop and filmed him
as he reenacted the killing. Investigators searched the route from the
dress shop to where the car was parked, but never found the gun.

According to grand jury testimony, the
bullets recovered from Goldsworth's body had no "land and groove"
markings. LAPD ballistics expert Sgt. William Lee said the bullets must have been too small for the gun and were therefore fired "with insufficient
force." Coroner's investigator Dr. Frederick Newbarr said Goldsworth
died from the hammer blows and that the gunshot wounds were only
superficial.

Rue was convicted of second-degree murder on Feb.
27, 1959. Although The Times didn't report the sentencing, he may have
been released from prison. A 1972 Times story refers to a company
called Credit Security Insurance, which was reorganized after the death
of its former president, Clifford Rue. California death records say a man named Clifford Rue died July 24, 1972, at the age of 48.

Despite Rue's confession, Police Chief Parker
continued to see the Mafia's influence in Goldsworth's death and some
websites include it in a list of mob killings.

Footnote: As of 1955, the
biggest football score was 222-0 (Georgia Tech over Cumberland
University, 1916). The maximum speed of a duck? It depends on the wind.